This invention is directed to an ear piercing assembly, and in particular, to a disposable ear piercing instrument having a displaceable plunger.
Ear piercing systems are well-known in the art. For improved sterility and safety and to prevent cross contamination, disposable ear piercing instruments have been developed to minimize handling of clutches, ear piercing earrings, and ear piercing assemblies; removing sources of cross-contamination. A first disposable ear piercing apparatus utilizes a disposable cartridge containing the ear piercing earring and clutch. The stud and clutch are stored in the cartridge which may be removed from the ear piercing assembly for disposal after ear piercing. Such an ear piercing assembly is known from applicant's co-pending U.S patent application Ser. No. 07/975,318. A second disposable ear piercing instrument is manufactured with the ear piercing stud and clutch already provided within the ear piercing instrument itself so that after a use, the entire ear piercing assembly is disposed. This apparatus is known from applicant's co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/936,936. In this apparatus the studs are contained within a housing mounted within the apparatus and a single push rod is moved behind the respective stud to eject the desired stud.
Both of these prior art devices are satisfactory. However, both ear piercing assemblies require some form of cartridge assembly for housing the piercing stud or earring and the clutch resulting in a complex construction. Additionally, the device utilizing the disposable clutch cartridge makes use of a dual plunger assembly requiring complex alignment and a complex plunger structure. The entirely disposable ear piercing instrument is only capable of using ear piercing studs and therefore suffers from the additional disadvantage that ornamental earrings cannot be used as the ear piercing earring in the piercing process. Accordingly, a disposable ear piercing instrument which simplifies the construction while allowing the use of ear piercing earrings, overcoming the shortcomings of the prior art is desired.